Manager Slaven Bilic insisted after a shambolic display that he would not be walking away from the mounting problems at his club, after an excellent Southampton ripped his team apart with goals from Charlie Austin, Dusan Tadic and James Ward-Prowse, leaving West Ham having conceded 14 goals in their last four league games.
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Sutton claims West Ham’s players should not use adjusting to the London Stadium as an excuse, reserving particularly scathing criticism for Italy forward Simone Zaza.
West Ham applied some pressure early in the second half, but a terrible lapse in defence allowed Tadic to wrong-foot goalkeeper Adrian and finish into the unguarded net to put Southampton in cruise control and Ward-Prowse capped a thorough beating in stoppage-time.
It has been an unhappy start to life at the London Stadium for the Hammers, who suffered a 4-2 loss to West Brom last time out, and they remain stuck in the bottom three of the Premier League after a tough start. It hurts me as a manager and it hurts the team. They are maybe too good with each other.
But Austin proved his worth for Southampton, scoring his fifth goal in four games in all competitions to dispel any doubts about his physical condition or ability.
“For the second, first Winston Reid and then Cheikhou Kouyaté presented the ball to the opposition.Reid, so reliable for the Hammers for so long but looking error prone this term, did not cover himself in glory for Southampton’s third, either”.
In August 2015, West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan told an unofficial club podcast: “They say he (Austin) has no ligaments in his knee, who knows?”
But Southampton broke the deadlock with five minutes of the half to play, as Steven Davis found Tadic on the left flank, who in turn played in an onrushing Bertrand.
He went on to suggest the players were lacking confidence after a poor start to the season.
“It is my responsibility, it is my team”, he told reporters after the match.
The Serb said: “It is my responsibility, I’m not running away”. It is a team, it is teamwork, it is a team mistake.
“These are the same players, and the same manager, as last year and at the moment everything that was really good last year is bad this season and everything that was average last season is now way below par”.
“One player can make a mistake, but this is four games, it is a team mistake, all of us”. It is not working.
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“I don’t want to point fingers at anyone, we are talking about that behind closed doors, and it is never one player”. The credit was there.
